Terrible, Terrible Books
Have you had enough of all these “good” books? You know, the ones that are all well written, nicely illustrated, and up to date? Because everywhere I go and in everything I read, that’s what I see. Best Books of the Year, Recommended Books, Starred Books, it’s about time we started tipping the scales back in the other direction. With books like this:
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That’s a scale tipper, folks. With the new, appropriately titled, Awful Library Books, two Michigan librarians are bringing the old and outdated to light. From the site:
Awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com is a collection of the worst of public library holdings. The items featured here are so old, obsolete, awful or just plain stupid that we are horrified that people might be actually checking these items out and depending on the information.
This blog contains actual public library holdings. No specific libraries or librarians are named to protect the guilty. Check your shelves, it could be you.
If you read this post on my weeding project, you know I can relate. Click here (or the image below) to head on over and view the other awesomely bad selections. Thanks to the outstanding blog librarian.net for the link!
Filed under: Articles
About Travis Jonker
Travis Jonker is an elementary school librarian in Michigan. He writes reviews (and the occasional article or two) for School Library Journal and is a member of the 2014 Caldecott committee. You can email Travis at scopenotes@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter: @100scopenotes.
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!!!!!!!!!!
Hilariously bad!
In defense of leeches! Actually, I’ll confess to you that my library has that exact leech book. And I’d show it to you right here and now, but the puppy is checked out! Why? Because it’s the only durn decent leech book for kids that anyone has ever done. Granted, the toenail fungus is gross. But for an old cover, I have to say that when kids take a single glance at this book they try to snatch it out of my hands like it was made of chocolate. Gross sells. Even nasty green toenail gross.
My favorite is part of a series about the solar system….Looking at Uranus. Hehehee. We love this title in middle school. 😉
Thanks for the link to the wonderfully terrible blog!
Is the toenail fungus related to leeches in some way? Are the leeches supposed to cure it somehow? It seems an odd design choice.
Ha – that’s a good question. I guess I’ve never heard of leeches curing toenail fungus. Wow, I’m now realizing that I need to read this book.
OK, I actually did a spit-take when I saw that cover! 😉
It makes me very happy to know that I was able to induce the much-coveted spit-take. Really, that’s my only goal with this whole operation.
Should you do so, please report back.
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